And now he would see the son and perhaps hear something about the war, news the papers didn’t have and wouldn’t have for weeks. The whole country feeding on rumour! Half the people wild for a fight, half wanting peace at almost any price. Militias made up of clerks and apprentices and commanded by whoever was willing to purchase the uniforms. The notion that the heroes of Shepton Mallet might stop the army that crushed the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz had long since ceased to be entirely funny. There were reports of hunger in the cities, the kind that had not been known in a generation. And from the north country came stories of men who dressed as women and burned down the very places where they were employed . . .

He tapped the horse with the heels of his boots. “Go on, Ben,” he said. “Let us go down and have our guinea.”

Until he was halfway up the stairs he could not remember the housekeeper’s name, then it came to him and he said, “It must have given you quite a shock, Nelly, woken out of your sleep like that. He has spoken to you at all?”

“Nothing,” she said. “He has barely opened his eyes. If he was sitting up and talking I should not have sent for you.”

The room she led him to was not one he had seen before. Plain, comfortable, square like the house itself, a door at the far side to what was presumably a dressing room. One large window looking south. The doctor stood with the housekeeper at the side of the bed.

“He is John, is he not?”

“Yes,” she said.

“John? John? It is Dr Forbes. I have come on a visit to see you . . . Hmm. Nihil dicit. Well, he is dormant. He is deeply asleep. A little flushed. Some fever. A low fever. I shall listen to his heart, Nelly.”

That morning, with Tom’s help, the housekeeper had got him into a nightshirt and under the covers. The doctor now drew down the covers and undid the ties at the neck of the shirt. From his bag he took a short listening trumpet. It was made of tin and he had had it for many years.

He listened for nearly half a minute then stood straight again, wincing and touching his back. “I thought at first I heard something. Some obstruction. But no, I believe it is strong enough. What is his age?”

“He turned thirty-one the week before he went.”

“And that was?”

“Last June.”

“And he has been in Spain or Portugal all this while?”

“He went first to his sister’s in Bristol.”

“I thought she married a farmer in Devonshire. Or was it Dorset?”

“I mean his younger sister. Mrs. Lucy Swann. Her husband is something with the ships.”

“He is at sea?”

“No. But he has business with them. The ships and the captains.”